As US medical school graduates learned Friday, March 15, where they would spend their residencies, new Match Day 2024 data showed a loss of interest in pediatrics, whereas emergency medicine regained popularity after concern over last year’s unfilled positions.
Hospitals and medical groups offered 41,503 residency positions in 2024, a 3% increase from last year, according to the data released by the National Resident Matching Program.
But though the number of pediatric residency slots increased slightly from last year, 8% of available positions remained unfilled in 2024 compared with about 3% last year.
Physician leaders and policymakers alike pay keen attention to Match Day results because they can signal future shortages in certain specialties, including primary care. Unfilled slots also can raise concerns over too many residency programs in a specialty.
Medical students’ interest in pediatrics continues to decline in part because it pays less than other specialties, Bryan Carmody, MD, MPH, a pediatric nephrologist known for his medical school commentaries, told this news organization. The number of pediatric applicants from US medical schools peaked in 2015 and has fallen since, he said.
“There’s been a lot of soul searching ... this week, with people speculating about lots of (reasons),” Dr. Carmody said. “I don’t think it’s even debt. You can look at the number of unfilled positions, and it correlates with the expected earning potential of those specialties.”
Family medicine, for example, filled about 88% of its positions this year.
Ob.gyn. residencies retained their popularity despite concerns over abortion and reproductive health rights in many states. The specialty filled 99.6% of its positions, a very slight improvement over last year’s 99% rate.
Though ob.gyn. applicants might prefer programs in states where there are more liberal policies around reproductive health, many won’t be in a position where they can choose that because of the limited number of ob.gyn. slots, Dr. Carmody said.
Unfilled residency slots likely will be filled through the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP). Applicants who did not match in the first round participate in SOAP for one of the 2562 positions in 787 programs that went unfilled after the matching algorithm was processed. A total of 2575 positions were placed in SOAP, including positions in programs that did not participate in the algorithm phase of the process. There were 83 fewer positions in SOAP in 2024, a decrease of 3.1% compared with last year’s Match. More detailed data on SOAP results will be released later this year.
A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.